menu css problem with dreamweaver

hello! I am at the pathetic first attempt to make a web site and I got stuck at what has probably a very simple answer

I want the text in the page to have a different link colour than the text in the menu
I set the page properties
and I put class=menu in the code of what I want to be the menu, to follow menu properties that I have set

it doesn't work

what can I do?
((I am working with layers, not tables))
thank you for any suggestion